Hi, being a composer and not a bassoon player I'm really short on advice about fingerings and technical difficulties in music. So far, I've only been told about difficulty in fingerings in the lower registers:

Where precisely does this difficult low range start (from G#?) and what is the most difficult bit about the fingerings - what exactly should I avoid?

How does the contra fingering difficulties differ?

If I restrict the faster fingerings to alternations between
low Bb to C (so you would only then need to change the thumb on Bb, B and C keys)
low (8ft) C to C#
low D to D#
low E to F
low F to F#
low F# to G
low G to G#
low G# to A
would it be easier?
(Speed - played stacatto fairly fast in short intense triplets)

Many thanks for all suggestions

Low B & Bb - C are not good at speed even when the bassoon is well adjusted (which many aren't).

In the lower two octaves the contra is very similar to the bassoon with a few exceptions - 1. middle space Eb is not played with the fork 1 + 3 fingering but needs 1 & 2 + 3 on the Eb 'trill' key which can slow things down a bit (eg C - Eb requires 3 to slide between the two keys).
2. Many contras have either a duplicate F# or G# keys but not both which reduces the options in passages with these notes especially when A# is involved as well. The higher note fingerings are generally different to the bassoon - in many cases easier.

Hope this helps.

I would add Db/C# to those three notes contra448 gave you. This note requires stretching around with the pinky and displaces the left thumb a bit, which is required for all four of these low notes.

I didn't properly read your message. You wanted to know about specific note sequences. My feeling is:

low Bb to C - a bit of a problem, as contra 448 says, because this involves the left thumb doing a lot of frantic key-finding
low (8ft) C to C# - no problem, BUT D down to Db and back is tough
low D to D# - no problem
low E to F - no problem
low F to F# - no problem
low F# to G - no problem (F# to G# a bit tricky, tho)
low G to G# - no problem
low G# to A - no problem

Haven't a clue about contra bassoon fingerings.

Cheers everyone - thanks for the response. Essentially I wanted a build-up of a chaotic jumble of random short notes based on the whole tone scale of D in the lowest register possible. However by the looks of things fingerings only allow a chromatic variation - any way around this?

On a another note, is it ok to hold a low D at ppp (coming in sfpp though).
Also how high can a bassoonist safetly come in not by step (i.e. make an entry hitting a high note)?

Many thanks once again.

"a chaotic jumble of random short notes" That's NO problem for some of us

With a bit of preparation a D whole tone sequence should be possible. A lot depends on the instrument & player though. Go for it!

Low D is one of the tricky notes which tends to be on the sharp side on most bassoons. (I have heard many professional players produce this note slightly high). However given a good bassoon, good reed & competent player it should be OK.

As with low D, high notes depend very much on the bassoon, bocal, reed & player. My limit for reliable attack is high C but a professional ought to be safe up to E.

... I should have emphasised in my previous post that the main difficulty with these notes is is the A#-C-D sequence with the thumb sliding.

Zoom wrote "Sound's like you're asking a bassoon to do a tuba's job"

Not if you want it to sound like a bassoon.

"Again: sit next to a bassoonist while he/she is playing through your various ideas. Questions that you might agonize over for hours/days will be answered in 5 minutes."

Good point.

Ian

Cheers. Sorry guys I forgot to mention that I've got 6 bassoons and 2 contras to go with - here's what I'm doing right now to give you a better picture:

<img src="http://www.hostdump.com/host/out.php/i22612_BassoonOctetr10002.gif" />

And by a random jumble I mean sort of:

<img src="http://www.hostdump.com/host/out.php/i22614_BassoonOctetr10003.gif" />

Thanks again for all your ideas - its been loads of help

Cheers zoom -

Tempos pretty fast ♩ = c.133 though there is a molto allarg
I've chosen D major purely because it fits the bassoon's range the best and meas that I am able to take advantage of the timbre of the low growling flz, and also the distinctive sound quality of the upper register without it being too hard to play (since the 5th, A, falls in a comfortable range). Also, the 3rd, F#, falls into the middle range which is weak but softly expressive.

No, these extracts are actually what I've written so far but I don't want to do to much without being completly sure of its playability.

The effect I was going for was as the piece enters a new section, the 6 bassoons descend down in a murky whole tone scale of D as the music falls away, crashing onto the lowest D as the contrabassoons are introduced for the first time with a growling flz.

Yeah - from what it seems its a lot more complicated than I thought so I probably will have to get together with a bassoonist though I don't really know many, so forum first then...

I'm working to a deadline of early August, but I won't have time in July because I'm totally away...

Many thanks for your help

Moving quickly to and from the lowest Bb is difficult.
And please, if you're going to have lots of notes down low, please give us even a short rest to breathe in! We played Jaws in band, and there was absolutely no time to breathe. Please don't do that.

As band geek points out, double reed players need time to breath. On sustained low notes, a bassoon can go through a lot of air. We recently performed a piece where the bassoon had a very exposed and sustained low C for eight measures. I had to start with my lungs as full as possible and, by the time it was done, I felt like my lungs were collapsing. More importantly, on high notes, a bassoon has the same problem as an English horn or an oboe, in that the player needs places to exhale. Single reed instruments (I also play the various clarinets) generally blow at a rate similar to normal respiration, but double reeds don't take much air except on the lowest notes of the bassoon. Unless you're writing for a virtuoso, it's important to make sure that the average player can play the part without inordinate respiratory demands. The same really applies to all wind instruments, of course. A player shouldn't find himself going into metabolic alkalosis from hypoventilating in order to get to the end of the music.